Three young Afghan female boxers risk missing an official invitation to train and fight in the UK because of “excessive” red tape.
Sadaf Rahimi, Fahima Mohammad and Shabnam Rahman have overcome a host of cultural and financial barriers to pursue their sport in Kabul.
They were due to visit London for their first bout with UK rivals as part of International Women’s Day tomorrow.
Instead, they have been forced to wait for days in Delhi for paperwork that has already been approved to be “officially processed.”
The team from Kabul has “invited status” and support for sports visas, but visitors from Afghanistan must get paperwork in India before they can travel to the UK.
Margaret Pope, founder of the Women in Sport Foundation which had worked to bring the Afghan boxers to the UK, said of the delay: “It is a frustrating, 11th-hour development to a groundbreaking initiative ... to bring the women to the UK and equip them with skills and experience to take back to Afghanistan.”
“One of the justifications for the UK military involvement in Afghanistan was to help improve the terrible situation for the country’s women,” she said.
“It is therefore a bitter irony that when there is a clear opportunity to assist some of the bravest, talented and most inspiring young Afghan women, bureaucratic delays are quashing their dreams,” she added.
“Making Afghans who request visas travel to a third country in order to receive them and then wait weeks to hear if they have been successful could cynically be seen as a way of discouraging all those but the very wealthy from visiting the UK,” former aid worker Melanie Brown said.
“This is extremely frustrating, there is the considerable cost and the impracticality of staying in Delhi for weeks at a time while waiting for paperwork to be rubber-stamped,” Brown added.
Rahimi, Mohammad and Rahman are due to train and attend a charity auction in London to raise money for their gym in Kabul, then travel to Bristol to be coached by Britain’s first officially licensed female boxer, Jane Couch MBE.
Couch is no stranger to struggles with authorities — in 1998, she persuaded an industrial tribunal to overturn a British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) ruling that had denied her a license. The BBBC had said that premenstrual syndrome made women too unstable to box.
After years of lobbying from British female fighters, women’s boxing was officially recognized as an Olympic sport on Aug. 14, 2009.
At the London 2012 Games, there were female boxers from Kazakhstan, North Korea and Turkey, while British boxer Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold.
Boston Red Sox pitcher Connelly Early on Tuesday struck out 11 in five shutout innings to match a franchise record during his MLB debut against the Oakland Athletics. “Pretty sick performance,” teammate Romy Gonzalez said. “It was fun to watch.” The only other Red Sox starter to rack up 11 strikeouts in his first career game was Don Aase versus the Milwaukee Brewers on July 26, 1977. “It was amazing, just to go out there and have that first opportunity,” Early said after getting the win in a 6-0 victory. “A long day of travel yesterday and just getting to the field, seeing
ELEVEN STRIKEOUTS: Blake Snell allowed two singles and two walks against the Rockies as he ended a personal three-game skid with his first win since Aug. 16 Blake Snell on Wednesday struck out a season-high 11 in six innings, while Mookie Betts hit a grand slam in the eighth as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Colorado Rockies 9-0 for their fourth straight win. Helped by their third series sweep of the Rockies this MLB season, the Dodgers increased their National League West lead to three games over the San Diego Padres, who lost 2-1 at home to the Cincinnati Reds. Betts went four for five with five RBIs, capped by his seventh career slam on a 3-0 pitch from reliever Anthony Molina to make it 8-0. Andy Pages and
‘DEVASTATED’: Argentina’s win was a reversal of their 28-24 defeat last week, with Australian forward Fraser McReight adding that ‘we did the same thing last week’ Argentina flyhalf Santiago Carreras punished an undisciplined Australia with 23 points off the tee as the Pumas held on grimly for a 28-26 win in Sydney yesterday to breathe new life into their Rugby Championship campaign. A try-fest beckoned in afternoon sunshine at Sydney Football Stadium, but Argentina needed only one through captain Julian Montoya, with Carreras doing the damage with seven penalties and a conversion in front of a sell-out crowd. A week after letting a 14-point lead slip in a 28-24 defeat to Australia in Townsville, Argentina saw most of a 21-point advantage erased in the final quarter as the
China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews. The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had said James authored the essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us,” a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person. “LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account. On Thursday, a representative
RSS